The Central American Resource Center CARECEN is a community-based organization that seeks to foster the comprehensive development of the Latino community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region. CARECEN was founded in 1981 to protect the rights of refugees arriving from conflict in Central America and to help ease their transition by providing legal services. CARECEN provides direct services in immigration, housing and citizenship while also promoting empowerment, civil rights advocacy and civic training for Latinos. http://www.carecendc.org/
Air Pollution in Central America
Like much of Latin America, Central America's urban centers experienced large population growth throughout the 1990s. This growth has in most cases resulted in an increase in the number of motor vehicles, thus leading to the growing problem of urban air pollution. In the countries of Central America, the number of motor vehicles on roads has increased up to 16% each year. For example, the number of vehicles in El Salvador has doubled since 1990 (there are now 500,000 automobiles, for instance). It is estimated that nearly 70% of all urban air pollution in the Central American region is caused by vehicular traffic. The chief polluters have traditionally been poorly maintained trucks and buses which run on lower quality fuels, such as leaded gasoline. However, the majority of countries in Central America have recently phased out the use of leaded gasoline, with Panama being the region's only nation to still permit the use of leaded gasoline for transportation. Panama plans to ban the sale of leaded gasoline by 2002.
Rapid growth, poor land use strategies, uncontrolled tourism development, and regional and globaldemand for natural resources are altering the land and seascapes of North and Central America, home to four biodiversity hotspots and the most biologically important desert wilderness areas on Earth. Stretching south from California and its unique chaparral and redwood forests toward Panama through woodlands, deserts, and rain forests, this region is rich in unique and threatened wildlife, such as black howler monkeys, yellow-headed parrots, California condors, and rodents found nowhere else on Earth.
Central America Resource Center
The Central American Resource Center CARECEN is a community-based organization that seeks to foster the comprehensive development of the Latino community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region. CARECEN was founded in 1981 to protect the rights of refugees arriving from conflict in Central America and to help ease their transition by providing legal services. CARECEN provides direct services in immigration, housing and citizenship while also promoting empowerment, civil rights advocacy and civic training for Latinos.http://www.carecendc.org/
Air Pollution in Central America
Like much of Latin America, Central America's urban centers experienced large population growth throughout the 1990s. This growth has in most cases resulted in an increase in the number of motor vehicles, thus leading to the growing problem of urban air pollution. In the countries of Central America, the number of motor vehicles on roads has increased up to 16% each year. For example, the number of vehicles in El Salvador has doubled since 1990 (there are now 500,000 automobiles, for instance). It is estimated that nearly 70% of all urban air pollution in the Central American region is caused by vehicular traffic. The chief polluters have traditionally been poorly maintained trucks and buses which run on lower quality fuels, such as leaded gasoline. However, the majority of countries in Central America have recently phased out the use of leaded gasoline, with Panama being the region's only nation to still permit the use of leaded gasoline for transportation. Panama plans to ban the sale of leaded gasoline by 2002.http://corrosion-doctors.org/AtmCorros/mapCA.htm
Conservation
Rapid growth, poor land use strategies, uncontrolled tourism development, and regional and globaldemand for natural resources are altering the land and seascapes of North and Central America, home to four biodiversity hotspots and the most biologically important desert wilderness areas on Earth. Stretching south from California and its unique chaparral and redwood forests toward Panama through woodlands, deserts, and rain forests, this region is rich in unique and threatened wildlife, such as black howler monkeys, yellow-headed parrots, California condors, and rodents found nowhere else on Earth.